When He began His Sermon on the Mount, what might Jesus have been thinking? Perhaps, and I’m only guessing, it was something like how He could best phrase an introduction to His ministry with the most ear-catching, eye-catching, attention-grabbing first-liner.
He hit the mark! It’s in the first word – “Blessed”.
The concept of blessing is where Jesus began His main teaching session.
If you’re into theology you should have no problem getting into my books Living the Beatitudes Today (book and study guide). Whether you agree or not, you’ll at least be accustomed to studying and considering the Christian worldview. But what if you’re not into that? What if it’s all new to you? How should you approach it? (In fact, it’s not as much about academic theological discourse as it is about how to live a life of God’s blessing anyway, which is why you could skip the slightly more “theological” first part of the Study Guide and turn straight to page 41, returning perhaps to the first sections later.)
Although we all read differently, each chapter of the book Living the Beatitudes Today is short enough to do in one sitting, taking about 20 to 30 minutes, with each focused only on one beatitude. Or you might prefer to mull over a chapter in a longer session, one page at a time, or whatever suits. When reading, I personally often skim-read first for the gist, and then return for more in-depth content.
But there are several reasons why some might get “stuck” part way in. One could be the weighty content matter of Jesus’s teaching. For it goes to the heart, and our hearts have hurts that we sometimes try to evade because they are so deep, like a sore or scab that we don’t want to touch or would like to just disappear without our doing anything to help make that happen. These are the most sensitive areas of our lives. For example, everyone has losses and failures deep down that they at times mourn over. Or we want to be proud of who we are, our achievements perhaps representing our very identity, who and what we are. The call to be meek challenges our ofttimes excessive self-focus. Sadly too, people also sometimes love their wrongdoing. So why then would we want to read about something that touches on these matters? The real reason we would want to is because of the hunger and thirst inside for truth, and the emptiness that gnaws away at us due to our human condition. We yearn to be at peace with God, with ourselves, and with others.
If you’re curious about the Beatitudes and truly want to find out about them, you will at some point need to face such issues head on, at least the ones that touch your life. To move forward, there’s no evading them.
But it’s not only about facing up to the issues, but also bravely desiring to launch out into God’s ‘boot camp’ where things can be turned around. It’s where you enter into a blessed life which you may have no concept of or, even more so, no experience of yet – until it all happens when you find the remedy in the blessings of the Beatitudes. There is a key, because how we relate to God and others is at the forefront and consequent to our right reactions.
So that’s one reason why some don’t get far through in their reading. The first three Beatitudes are seen as too daunting, dealing with deep, challenging issues at the core of our human dilemma. By focusing on the negative (a typical human weakness), we easily miss the “blessed” part, worrying about what we have to do to even get near a blessing. It takes an adventurousness to launch out into this stuff.
However, when we see the “for they shall be . . .” bit, we discover the beautiful part!
So the second reason why some give up in this journey is linked with the first, namely that initially we have to get connected with the Source. My next book will be all about this. But for Living the Beatitudes Today, the key is that you have to go to the end first—not of the book but of the Study Guide . . . to the final paragraph on page 145. If you’re a believer then it will be simply a matter of affirming or re-affirming your faith. If not then that’s the start of your journey – the prayer on page 145. Jesus’s first plain message was about the “kingdom of heaven” being “at hand” and the need to do something absolutely necessary to get in touch with it. Read it in Matthew 4:17. That’s the starting point. The prayer on page 145 of the Study Guide is a suggested one to help enable that to happen. You could word it differently, but the core of it is how to kick-start your personal faith journey. And when you do, a whole new world will open up for you.
If you’re simply reading out of curiosity, and not yet understanding the content, then once you’ve gotten hold of the books you’ll know, now, where to go to for the key to the blessings of the Beatitudes.